Newsletter-308-December-1996

The Cripplegate fort
and the Temple of Mithras Roy Walker

The October
lecture reintroduced us to the work of a former HADAS President, Professor
Grimes, when John Shepherd (Curator of the
Grimes' Archive at the Museum of London) told of recent research into the Cripplegate fort and the Temple of Mithras. Gustav Milne
in April, 1994, had told us of the reappraisal of the Professor's work at St Brides, Fleet Street, so we had an insight into
the high standard of the original excavations

carried out with limited resources as well as
the care and respect with which this work had been updated. The archive for these sites was presented to the Museum in
1988 and will now form the basis for a comprehensive publishing programme.* John Shepherd had worked as a research assistant
to Professor Grimes at the Institute of
Archaeology and was well-qualified to present his mentor's work.

Excavating in the rubble of the post-war City of London, Professor Grimes noticed in places two adjoining thicknesses of the Roman wall and attributed this to a major repair dated to 180 AD, the original wall being 60 years older. The 1949-50 excavation on a length of wall at Noble Street (close to the Museum of London) revealed the same "repair" but
here one wall curved eastward and the other stopped. This represented two separate structures - and he then interpreted the "repair" as a new City wall
butting up to the older fort wall. A research programme placed the "double walls" on a map with projected
courses, a series of slit trenches were then dug on the projections locating the walls of the fort and much more. The west
gate and south gates were located, with the internal street plan also preserved in the modern street layout of the City. The south gate consisted only of a ditch and bridge but the west gate foundations are now preserved beneath London Wall. In the St Albans Street area strip-like barracks blocks were located but beneath Shelley House more ornate buildings with mosaic floors and painted wall-plaster indicated higher ranking occupants.

Professor Grimes always maintained that the discovery of the Temple of Mithras was a fluke! He ran a series of trenches across the middle of the
proposed site of Bucklersbury House to provide a cross section of the Walbrook Valley in order to investigate the nature of the River Walbrook. He located a series of revetments in a waterlogged, shallow valley dating from 70 AD up to 220 AD when the temple was constructed. He was not initially aware of the name of the cult that worshipped in the apsidal­ended building but plotted a sequence of nine floor surfaces. Two sleeper walls initially carried two rows of seven columns the length of the building, the columns had been removed by the time floor five was laid.
Buried beneath floor five were five cult objects -the heads of Mithras, Minerva and Serapis, a Mercury group and the hand of Mithras. Professor Grimes related their quality with finds made in the Walbrook in 1889 - a Mithras relief and statues of a river god and a genius. All these objects were connected with the cult of Mithras - the purpose of the temple was now
known. At the time it was surmised that these objects had been removed by Christians. However, apart from their burial, little damage had been incurred (noses were still intact) and this reverence would appear to be out of character with an iconoclastic act. On floor nine was found a marble Bacchus group. A silver strainer and casket used in Bacchic rites came from perhaps a niche in the wall and other finds nearby lent weight to the theory that cult which took over from Mithras was Bacchus.As part of the review of the achive, John had investigated the actual location of the 1889 find-recorded as "being from the Walbrook during deep “ sewerage works". He found no record of any such operation but that works had been undertaken to buildings nearby. One stanchion of the buildings had actually penetrated the floors of the temple, thus confirming that the finds had been originally deposited in the temple. The Mithras relief could have fitted a square hole in the face of the apse.

The temple suffered from its nearness to the Walbrook - buttresses were added after construction had started due to waterlogging, the number of floors may have been due to increased dampness. Collapse and subsidence were repaired with a column drum shoring up the foundations and after use (around 350 AD) the building was vacated, not pulled down, and became inundated with Walbrook deposits.

This lecture provided an insight into the work of Professor Grimes, his interpretive skills and the results
achieved despite the handicaps under which he worked - short of funding and assistance. It also illustrated how forty years on, an archive can be enhanced l• further work in the field and by additional research?
although the Professor's meticulous notes and drawings no doubt make the task of those who follow much easier.

Two topics will be published later this year: "St Bride's Church" by Gustav Milne and "The
Temple of Mithras" by John Shepherd. The fort and other Cripplegate sites plus a Gazetteer of all 65 sites will follow_

Mrs
Banham - one of our founder members. A delightful
note came from her which I am sure all our early members would like to read. They will remember the large tin of sweets she always brought on outings and weekend until a spinal illness stopped her
activities several years ago. In the very early days Mr Barham addressed all our newsletter envelopes by hand and dealt with their dispatch - those were the days!

Dorothy Newbury says: "The Minimart profit has risen
to £1,040. May 1 add my grateful thanks to all the hard workers in the Society who helped to achieve this excellent result. I was somewhat under the weather myself, and feared I had not put my usual
effort into the event. Thanks, everyone."

Please let us
know of any more examination successes. (0181 203 0950).

Readers will recall my article
in the September Newsletter on Ephesus which commented on the serious damage wrought by the thoughtless over amplification of
a pop concert in its ancient theatre.

In the Autumn I returned to
the Aegean to visit the Green island of Samos which became the centre of Ionic civilisation when Miletos was destroyed by
the Persians. One of the most important archaeological sites on the island is Heraion situated some 7 kilometres
from Pythagorion, the home of the
father of modern mathematics, Pythagoras. On the
windswept plain ofHeraion lies the Temple of Hera, accepted as one of
the great wonders of the ancient
world. The magnificent Temple to the
goddess was 108.75 metres in length,
54.68 metres wide and its columns
reached the astonishing height of 25
metres. The open colonnades had a
total of 135 columns,
of which only one now remains in
situ, 9 metres high. Stretching from the temple for some 4,000 metres was the Sacred Way which today forms the base of the Samos International Airport runway! BAs planes accelerate to full power along the
runway, the tremendous vibration has
caused the central 'plugs' holding each section of the remaining column in place to
fracture, so that several are now far
from the perpendicular. One wonders
how much longer the column can take this punishment without
collapsing! Before the coming of the jet age, the column had been subjected to the ravages of Turkish artillery who are said to have used it for target practice after they conquered Samos in 1822 and occupied it
for over a hundred years. Thus the upper sections were destroyed and the rest bear evidence of this senseless practice.With Samos becoming a major tourist island with a burgeoning infrastructure, one cannot but wonder how long it will be before it is adjudged that an extension to the Airport is needed, economic requirements once again proving superior to the irreplaceable loss of ancient heritage. Surely a poor way to celebrate our own Millennium.

BUTSER ANCIENT FARM Bill
Bass

Peter
Reynolds reports that this year has been a definite improvement on 1995, with more
schools and visitors. The site is being
enhanced all the time with the construction of the Roman Villa steadily
advancing - the hypocaust room is now ready for the insertion of the underground flue
system - the walls being
two tubuili high. A second double ring
roundhouse is now ready to be thatched, the wheat straw is currently being
threshed. The herb garden in the labyrinth at long
last is coming into being. In addition Peter is building the framework of a
large roundhouse, which will be transported
to the Isle of Man where it will form the heart of a new Visitor Centre for the
Iron Age at Peel. The first flat-pack roundhouse
ever!

The Camp Lewis Archaeology Project, June 1996

One
meets some really super people on the several Archaeological Digs with which
have been involved. Charlie Haecker is a little guy whose enthusiasm for
military history is in inverse proportion to his size. I first met him at the Washita Battlefield Dig in
November 1995 and had many a late-night discourse together. Charlie is
an archaeologist with the National Park Service in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I have
his 200-page report on the archaeological work that he carried out at Palo Alto
Battlefield in Texas in 1992 and 1993. It is
a splendid document complete with maps, illustrations and diagrams.

So I considered it a compliment
to be invited to take part in a project involving a metal-detecting survey of the Camp Lewis site in the Pecos National
Historical Park in New Mexico. Here one touches a great deal of history. The
Pueblo itself dates back to 1100, Coronado's expedition passed through the area
in 1541, there were encounters with and eventual colonisation by the
Spaniards, then from 1821 the Santa Fe Trail

followed
the same route, and finally came the Civil War battles at Apache Canyon and
Glorietta Pass in 1862.

The sparse
number of people who populated the Territories at the beginning of the Civil
War were naturally divided in their loyalties.
Although the Colorado and New Mexico Territories were nominally on the side of the Union, the South saw the opportunity of a military
campaign aimed first at bringing these areas into the Confederacy
and then driving through into California, where there were a number of
supporters of the South and where the State
was isolated from the military nucleus of the Union. With California as

part of the
Confederacy, the South would have an unblockaded outlet to the sea and maybe
the eventual outcome
of the war would have been different.

So much for
the Military Theory. An army under the Command of General Henry H Sibley and
comprised mainly of Texans moved into the Territory in July 1861.
There are a few hooks which describe this campaign, notably W C Whitford's Colorado
Volunteers in the Civil War, The New Mexico Campaign in 1862 (written in 1906) and Alvin M Josephy's The Civil War in the American West. But
briefly, the Confederates
captured Fort Fillmore near the border, wintered and then won a battle at
Valverde on the east

side of the Rio Grande, by-passing Fort Craig on the west hank. The
victory at Valverde was an important one and enabled Sibley to occupy
Albuquerque and Santa Fe virtually without a shot. Meanwhile, Union forces were gathering at Fort Union and being augmented
by volunteers from Colorado Territory. The route from Fort Union to
Santa Fe is through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains via Glorietta Pass,
established on the old Santa Fe Trail.

The Battle of La Glorietta is one
of several to which authors ascribe the epithet "The Gettysburg of the West". In many ways it is the most
deserving as the Confederate defeat here marked the beginning of the end of
Sibley's Campaign. In the battle the Confederates were actually in the
ascendancy, but left their wagon train, supplies
and horses virtually unguarded. These were attacked and destroyed by a Union battalion under the command of Major John
Chivington - him of subsequent Sand Creek notoriety. Two important battlefield features were Pigeon's
Ranch , which was very close to the action, and Kozlowski's Ranch further back
towards Fort Union and the advancing Union troups, under the command of Colonel
Edward Canby - later to he murdered
in the Medoc War. Camp Lewis was established close to Kozlowski's and was occupied by
the First Colorado Volunteers at the time of the battle and probably afterwards when the Ranch was used for eight to ten weeks
as a field hospital. So to the politics. There is a proposal to widen State Highway 63 which may
affect the site of Camp Lewis, the exact
location of which was uncertain, hence the raison
d'être for the archaeological survey. I worked alongside the road for three days or so and the number of
vehicles in a day equated to those passing through the Watford Gap on the M1 in about two seconds. Vehicles were so
few we would look up and observe. I am told that the road widening is a
"pork-barrel" project and will continue whatever, but some re-routing might
be possible. Furthermore, there are proposals to develop Kozlowski's stage stop
as a visitor contact station and to establish an interpretive trail, hence
another reason to locate the exact whereabouts of Camp Lewis Now here is a very interesting bit to us Brits. Kozlowski's and another
ranch building now used by the Park Service, and
acres of land in this area were all given to the Federal Government by no less
a person than Greet Garson, who had settled with her husband in
this part of America for some years. Our own Mrs Miniver and an Essex girl to
boot. (Recent obituaries on Greer Garson stated that she made up the story that she was Irish to impress the Hollywood moguls
at the time). I flew out to Albuquerque on the Saturday and was grateful to be able
to indulge myself in the outdoor whirlpool after the tiring journey. The
next day I headed due south, not north, to find the remains of Fort Craig and the Valverde Battlefield, all very isolated
but unspoilt and undeveloped. Fort Craig is a sort of National Monument
where much restoration / archaeological work has been done in the past but it
takes some finding, and, boy, was it hot! (To
be continued. Part 2 in January 1997 Newsletter)

The smallest excavation?
By Bill Bass

The smallest excavation undertaken by MoLAS to date is a hole approx 50
cm square before erection of a lamp post, adjacent
to the Scheduled Ancient Monument of the site of Bermondsey Abbey - the corner
of Bermondsey Street and Long Lane SE1 (MoLas Annual Review
1996).

NOTED IN THE NEWSPAPERS

Stuart Piggot, who died
recently at the age of 86, was Abercromby Professor of prehistoric archaeology
at Edinburgh University, and considered the leading authority
on the Neolithic in Britain, as well as being an eminent European pre-historian. His numerous books include Neolithic Cultures of the British Isles (1965),
Ancient
Europe (1954) and Wagon,
Chariot and Carriage (1992). He was made a CBE in 1976.

The "Sunday Times" of
3 November reported how archaeologists diving in the sea off Alexandria, Egypt believed they
had identified the remains of the famous Pharos, longest surviving of the Seven
Wonders of the Ancient World. There is
speculation also about the discovery and appearance of the Timonium, Cleopatra's royal quarters (similar to the
Parthenon, but with Egyptian influence?)

Listen
carefully in February 1997! American scientists are to build a
computer version of the parasaurolophus's
head and crest. A computer simulation of air will pump through it to generate
sound. Unlike the one-note elephant, this dinosaur's nine feet of
cranial tubing may have produced a deeper sound with varying notes.

Just issued is Ancient
Art, a catalogue of relatively inexpensive but genuine
antiquities - Roman glass vases start at £45,
while £425 would buy you a fragment of Etruscan wall painting, and cuneiform
tablets of 2000 BC from Mesopotamia would cost £125-250. (Chris
Martin, Ancient Art, 85 The Vale, Southgate, London N14 6AT.
0181-882509)

The British Museum is considering introducing a £5 admission charge in
1997. The alternatives are sacking staff or
restricting opening hours, as the BM is facing its deepest financial crisis in
250 years. One of the next collections to
follow could be the Tate Gallery. Times,
October 27.

COURSE

The Museum of London is
running a study day of lectures and
visits, Whitefriars Windows, which
wilI provide an opportunity to view the original designs,
cartoons, glass and equipment from the Museum's Whitefriars Archive. There is also an optional visit to see mosaics and
stained and painted glass in St Paul's Cathedral. Fees and SAE to The Interpretation Unit, Museum of London,
EC2Y 5HN (£15, concessions £7.50. Tel: 0171 600 3699)